Miss Chloe: A Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison (2024)

If either Toni Morrison or her consummate author-fan, A.J. Verdelle, had anything to say about it, I’m sure that both would categorically disqualify me from coming anywhere near reviewing the latter’s new autobiographical memoir, MISS CHLOE.

In her labyrinthine but compelling reminiscence about Morrison’s career and their rather eccentric off-and-on relationship, Verdelle reiterates at mindful intervals how important it is for the reader to really know the late Nobel laureate’s pivotal works and, by extension, her own award-winning THE GOOD NEGRESS (1995).

I admit to near-total failure on that count, having so far read only Morrison’s THE BLUEST EYE, and that was decades ago. Yet even realizing within the first 50 pages that neither Verdelle nor her revered mentor tolerates fools of any kind --- especially race-cultural ones --- the power of the writing and emotional imagery drew me on and on, deeper and deeper into the complexities of what it’s like not to be white, privileged, straight, politically safe and educated barrier-free.

In fact, it was hard to know where to stop, as MISS CHLOE really has no formal chapter divisions. Reading it was a lot like playing or listening to music with no clearly defined resolving chords to mark key transitions of mood or material. Yet suddenly (or subtly) there you are, listening inwardly as Verdelle slaloms in and out of her personal life and career, her interactions with Morrison (whose birth name was Chloe Wofford, hence the title), and the political, religious and social contexts that formed, and often wounded, both women.

I learned to simply let go of things like literary structure and chronology, and let my brain relax into Verdelle’s distinctive semantic and descriptive flow. As in few other books I’ve read, this one bears out the maxim that mastering the rules and conventions of any art form legitimately entitles one to break them. Verdelle’s way of breaking, or recreating, literary rules --- even those of conventional sentence composition --- goes a long way to giving MISS CHLOE its abundant character. In the hands of any lesser writer, such a precarious blend of genre and technique would rapidly descend into chaos. Not here.

As compelling as the book is to read, it is far from an emotionally or psychologically smooth journey. And perhaps that is only to be expected from a friendship (or intense mentorship) that spanned generations, careers, decades, personal crises and a very obvious power imbalance.

It is the latter aspect that I found somewhat problematic at times. As someone not quite in Morrison’s intimate inner circle, not as securely established in academia or popular culture, and often struggling economically at a period when Morrison had no financial challenges, Verdelle frequently went to extraordinary lengths of time, effort and expense to supply Morrison with things or favors for which she was rarely fully acknowledged or thanked. Not just once, but over and over again.

As Morrison failed physically in her later years and was increasingly unable to travel, doing personal favors for her as a friend seemed very reasonable. But the narrative often reads as one of almost religious devotion on Verdelle’s part, where gifts and personal presence are bestowed time and time again, regardless of the adored one’s ability to provide such things for themselves. The disturbing irony in all of this is how eloquently and forcefully Verdelle, having attended Catholic schools as a child, denounces religion as a negative influence in her life, while acting out a profound discipleship of her own.

However, despite her mercurial, inconsistent and often turbulent relationship with a much younger and independently gifted disciple, Morrison was faithful to her protégée and her peers in dispensing a great deal of powerfully good advice. Her experience as an editor gave her rare insight into the perennial obfuscations of major publishing companies (especially at a time when Verdelle felt compromised over endless unnecessary revisions to a coming book). Her admonition to young writers to know what they’re doing before asking self-serving questions of public figures was right on target, despite the often terse or rude deliveries.

After reading this book, I honestly feel I now know more about A.J. Verdelle than I do about Toni Morrison --- and in the end, I believe that’s as it should be. Both women have shared a lot of the same challenges in a world perpetually marred by racism, injustice, greed and patriarchy. And they have both overcome, time and time again.

Morrison died in 2019, a triumphant national and international icon of literature, Black or otherwise. Verdelle was too much the outsider even to be invited to her funeral. But I came to the end of MISS CHLOE dead certain that the next chapter, the next book, the next icon, will be Miss A.J.

And that will be worth waiting for.

Reviewed by Pauline Finch

What a gorgeous, thoughtful memoir. It’s hard to describe this book, because it encapsulates and covers so many topics, so many time periods, so many points of view. It’s an honest, hard-hitting look at growing up black in America, at being a person of letters, of dedicating yourself to language and books, and to the world of the mind.

Though Toni Morrison is the worthy focus of much of this book, and her large shadow is inescapable, and beyond influential, it’s AJ Verdelle whose story is most engrossing, most instructive, and most honestly probed and shared. A brilliant writer and teacher, AJ is getting her due.

This is a book about books. About words and ideas. About being yourself in a world that seeks to mold you and bend you. Just wonderful.

Reading Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved” was a turning point for me and made me choose Literature as a major while in college. This gorgeous book - MISS CHLOE - is written by a fellow writer and mentee/friend of Morrison’s. Reading this felt like I was sitting with the author listening to her tell stories about her life and her relationship with Toni Morrison. It’s a short book - I could have kept reading and reading. It’s a beautiful book with life lessons and insights on writing and publishing. Loved every word. Heartfelt thanks to Amistad for the advanced copy. Go read this one. It’s special.

I should have DNF’d immediately.

Book felt exploitative. Verdelle’s story with a side of Toni Morrison. Long stretches of time with no contact with Morrison. I should have stopped reading this one.

Good. A bit more meandering than I would have really love.

An amazing inside look at Toni Morrison through the eyes and voice of A.J. Verdelle. If you love Morrison, you’re going to absolutely love this book. A real page turner!

A.J. Verdelle uses memories in Miss Chloe to not only depict her friendship with the late literary giant Toni Morrison, but also to reflect on the art and struggles of writing, the inextinguishable force of Black genius, and the revolutionary impact of Morrison’s work. Verdelle describes at length the way Morrison’s characters defy (white) societal perceptions of Black people. They are characters with complexity, agency, joy presented alongside sorrow, and Verdelle’s love for them and their author shines through in every page. Verdelle pays homage to other influences as well, including Nina Simone, Dr. Mary Bunting, James Baldwin, and her grandmother, Ma Howell. But at the center of it all is Toni Morrison.

Throughout the book, Verdelle espouses a love of language, a frequent discussion topic between her and Morrison, from the use of color-based language to treasured words discovered within the pages of a childhood dictionary. “The knowledge that language fluency would allow was the real target of restrictions and withholding,” Verdelle writes. “Worlds open up when you can read. Power becomes available when you can speak, write, argue, compete” (page 190). There are many enjoyable anecdotes, from insights into the frustrations of publishing and the nerves of meeting one’s literary idol, to losing her favorite scarf to Morrison and a woman standing up in the middle of a Toni Morrison Society session to declare that reading Song of Solomon again had convinced her to divorce her husband. There is also a great deal of Verdelle herself in the book (as one would expect from a memoir) that reminds us of the incredible power and pressure of having someone who believes in us.

Readers may initially struggle with the book’s layout, which follows more of an emotional chronology than a straight-forward timeline, but I encourage them to let Verdelle’s powerful words carry them from start to finish—they will be richer for it. Read Miss Chloe if you have all of Toni Morrison’s books. Read it if you haven’t picked up a single one. Make a list of all the names and titles Verdelle drops—the writers and artists and musicians and more—and then keep reading.

I’m a huge TONI MORRISON (TM) Fan! I also LOVE great writing. AJ is that, a great writer! She’s was the right person to write this kind of unusual viewpoint on TM.
The backstories that AJ’s shares in terms of her friendship with TM are tremendously insightful! Friendships with highly accomplished and famous people, are not like everyday friendships. AJ was able to shed light on this kind of friendship. Most importantly is the essay like commentary that AJ shares on a variety of subject matters. It’s AJ’s perspective on race, religion, the privileged, and other social conditions that are weaved in and out of the friendship, is what really makes the work a hell of a read, to the point that I could not put it down. The aspects that I believe are most important is AJ commentary on TM’s many works. The characters, situations, historical significance, messages in social and racial aspects in TM’s writing. Stuff that I had forgotten about, and new perspectives to think about; AJ also talks about the technical aspects of TM’s writing, questions and answers that Toni answered personally. TM writing makes you think about many things on many levels. AJ makes many aspects on TM writing more clear.

I read other reviews that had criticism for AJ in terms of writing a book on a personal friendship as well as the fact that the book covers other areas of her AJ’s life that some folks took issue with. I did not have an issue with these areas of the book at all. In fact I wish more books like this one were available to read. This is a REAL STORY. I think it’s important that broad based subject matters on real experiences be written and published. Besides the fact that AJ has to be a fantastic daily journalist, because the details are amazing. To line everything up with a friendship with someone as great as TONI MORRISON, I could not ask more from a book!

It’s great that we have insight that we can actually read about on one of the worlds greatest authors, TONI MORRISON!

Thank you AJ VERDELLE for taking the time to write it! I just hope one day AJ VERDELLE’s COWBOY novel is one day published!

My first inclination was to rate this five stars. It is a sumptuous feast of words. Anyone who loves words, books, libraries should love reading this book for the vocabulary, the turn of a phrase, her careful well thought out writing. I found AJ Verdelle's life interesting in that she knew and met so many well known luminaries. Her friendship with Toni Morrison was a literary friendship not a true friendship in my opinion. I think Morrison's advice to her was solid. Morrison considered herself so great that she was not a particularly kind person. I tired of this. As the book wore on I found some of their interactions less than interesting. That feast of words began to wane. Verdelle also used the word giddy at least twenty times.

This book’s premise excited me because no writer has meant more to me than Toni Morrison. Having read everything Morrison has written, I admired and greatly enjoyed Verdelle’s extensive reflections and insightful literary criticism of Morrison’s peerless novels and her often overlooked vital nonfiction works, Playing in the Dark and The Source of Self-Regard. However, as a memoir, Verdelle’s book did not engage me as much. She takes a hodgepodge approach to narration, which is okay, except that I felt her recollections lost sight of intimacy due to her verbosity and her use of so many fancy and archaic words that sometimes made me shake my head.

As I mentioned, I liked the insight of Verdelle’s erudition about Morrison’s incomparable work, but I found her pontification about her memories of interacting with Morrison to be exhausting. She does share some enlightening and funny anecdotes, such as the scarf-absconding story and the tuna-sandwich-tasting story, but I yearned for Verdelle to recount more memorable scenes with her and Morrison. Maybe she could have recreated a few dialogue sequences instead of quoting a mere line from Morrison here and there? Instead, she often floats around their interactions to the point where she actually says very little about their friendship. Going back and forth in narration can be an interesting strategy, but Verdelle tends to lose momentum with her winded musings at times.

My final assessment: Although Verdelle’s literary commentary on Morrison’s work is quite extraordinary, her overall memoir came off more laborious than inspiring.

(3.75 rounded to 4.0)

Toni Morrison is one of the most well known and award winning authors in the 20th-21st centuries. Morrison’s eleven novels and her extensive academic and nonfiction writings create an oeuvre representative of the academic and the intellectual cadre of Black writers and artists coming to be looked upon as an icon. Our author, A. J. Verdelle, is also an award winning Black writer and professor. When Morrison provides a blurb for Verdelle’s first book (“The Good Nigress”), it begins a mentorship/friendship between the women for the next 25 years.

This book is described as a memoir biography and that adequately classified the book but it is also a treatise on writing, books, libraries and the publishing industry. It looks at education in a racist system. This book is a chronicle of a 25 year conversation between two women at different stages of their lives. The conversation’s topics include religions, education, their childhoods, men, children, language, words and writing. The book is heavily concentrated on Verdelle rather than Morrison. However since it ties back to the issues raised in their conversations and is in itself an interesting story, it isn’t an issue. Recommend to readers who enjoy memoirs, biographies, writing, books and language.

False Advertising Alert! The subtitle of this book is "A Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison" and so somehow I expected this book to tell me about the incredible author Toni Morrison. Not so much.... And so initially I was disappointed when the author went on and on, page after page about herself with no mention of Toni Morrison. I have to admit that Verdelle's language at times was poetic and rhythmic, but still: I was looking for Toni Morrison. So that was problem number one.

And problem number two: The author is overly ready to be offended, to be angry and to see everything through a black victim lens.

There were good things about the memoir. Toni Morrison did come through in some of the passages, her wisdom, her persistence, her sense of entitlement. Descriptions of her novels led me to decide to reread them. Some anecdotes were quite funny and revealing. And Verdelle does have a poet's way with words. I just wish she'd spent more of those words on Morrison.

"She wanted me to use my sight line to envision a future, to go right ahead and upset the social or intellectual order. She wanted me to do as she had done: write confidently, consistently, and kick doubt to the curb.

Whatever the source of doubt, she felt it should be dispensed with. Toni Morrison did not traffic in doubt.

I know you tried, Miss Chloe, in your silent way. You tried listening to my nattering: Maybe it wasn't the editors, the dissonance between my Black cowboys and their white fantasies. Maybe it was the writing. My writing. Maybe my writing was too circuitous. Maybe, maybe, may be.

I can still see you looking at me, your pizza midair, your mouth agape. Am I not here with you? That's what your look seems to be saying, screaming, shouting.

The answer: Yes. Yes, yes, yes."

Verdelle writes with style and zeal about Morrison's powerful influence over her life and their intermittent friendship. As she says "My relationship with Morrison lasted a third of my life and was not wholly intimate and not fully professional. Our relationship had its flares and embers, its low heat and occasional blaze.”

The book is more than an ode to Morrison. Verdelle lyrically writes about her own childhood and experiences. I appreciated her honesty about her own writing struggles. I will read more by her.

Bait and switch. Think you’re going to hear about the monumental Toni Morrison? New insights and stories, perspectives? Nope. You’re going to get occasional banalities about her greatness mixed in with a giant pile of stuff about Verdelle. For someone who claims to revise ad infinitum, the writing is surprisingly repetitive and vague. For someone who teaches creative writing, whatever happened to “Show, don’t tell”? Give Verdelle credit for understanding that this book wouldn’t have sold five copies without pretending it’s about Morrison. Deeply disappointing.

“An announcement that they’re gone is like an invitation to send them up…Send them up, raise them up, testify to their having been here, and having been real, and having made their way from where they started to where they ended up…People who are gone, to use Morrison’s lexicon, had a whole lot to do with us when they were here. They are gone from our lives and from the world, and they had power when they left.”

While the title suggests a literary genius Toni Morrison memoir, readers will learn more about the life and thoughts of author A. J Verdelle, (including her opinion on Catholicism, gifting, and a family recipe for homemade rolls) than a tale of substantive friendship. Those with significant prior knowledge of Morrison's works will likely gain the most from the ephemeral interactions described.

An homage to Toni Morrison cached in memoir.

Toni Morrison superfan here. The opening pages read like a primer to Morrison which is fine but not what I was hoping for.

I listened to this and learned so much about Ms. Verdelle and Toni Morrison, a great book to listen to

This was better than I expected. Verdelle, uses her relationship with Morrison to discuss so much more than her time spent with the iconic writer.

SIX WORD REVIEW: Amazing insight from the queen's companion.